McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [54]
Rafe laughed. “Except for his size, he reminds me of Pa.”
“Yeah,” Holt agreed. “Damn the luck.” He shifted in the saddle, glad for a break from that wagon seat.
“Let’s stop at the telegraph office first,” he said, just as if the subject were open to negotiation, which it wasn’t.
“Maybe there’ll be some word from Austin about Gabe’s new trial.”
As it turned out, there was a telegram waiting for Holt. And it was from the governor’s office.
Trouble was, the news was all bad.
The governor was back East in Washington, hobnobbing with that unruly bunch in Congress.
In the meantime, Holt concluded, Texas was on its own, and Gabe Navarro was up shit creek, good and proper.
Disheartened, Holt and Rafe headed for the jail.
Gabe was still in a surly mood, but now he was vocal about it. Holt couldn’t rightly decide whether that was an improvement or a setback.
“I told you not to let Melina come here!” he raged, never troubling himself with a howdy-do. “She should have stayed in Waco!”
“Melina is fine where she is,” Holt said, hoping it was true. He’d left her with Lorelei, and God only knew what the pair of them were up to by now.
Gabe had been clenching the bars of his cell in both hands; now, he thrust himself away and began to prowl back and forth. At least he had the room to do that, since they’d moved him from the other hole in the wall, but with the gallows clearly visible through the one window, Holt didn’t reckon it as an advantage.
“You been getting regular meals?” he asked.
“Yes,” Gabe spat. Ungrateful, that’s what he was. And purely cussed. He jabbed a thumb in Rafe’s direction.
“Who’s this yahoo?”
Holt explained. At least Gabe could still spot a yahoo when he saw one.
Rafe didn’t put out a hand, and neither did Gabe. They just stood there, each one sizing up the other and, from the looks on their faces, finding him just shy of suitable. Gabe finally turned his head and spat.
“I came to tell you we’ll be on the trail a while,” Holt said into the uncomfortable silence. “We’ll scare up a decent lawyer along the way and get you out of here.”
Gabe’s expression was bleak, and not, Holt suspected, because he thought he was being left high and dry, with his death just a month away. He thrived on fresh air, open spaces and the feel of the sun on his face as much as any man Holt had ever known, and it must have half killed him, knowing he couldn’t go along with Holt and Rafe.
“You find Frank,” Gabe said. “Maybe there’s a chance for him, if you get to him in time. See that Melina and the baby are taken care of, and don’t let these bastards bury me in a churchyard.”
Holt was taken aback and couldn’t think what to say.
Rafe had no such problem. “You sound like a man who’s fixing to give up,” he told Navarro. “You’ve got a nasty disposition, but I didn’t figure you for a chickenshit.”
Gabe hurled himself at the bars, would have come through them if he could, just to get Rafe by the throat.
Rafe grinned. “Maybe there’s hope for you after all,” he said.
CHAPTER 21
LORELEI BIT HER LOWER LIP, closed her eyes for a moment, and climbed up onto the crate. Melina held Seesaw by his halter and nodded encouragement. They’d spent most of the afternoon making friends with the beast, leading him around and around in ever-widening circles and rewarding him with sugar every time he showed the slightest inclination toward obedience.
Hiking up her skirts and muttering a prayer, Lorelei swung her right leg over the mule and landed as gently as possible on his back.
A great shudder ran through his obstinate body, and Lorelei held her breath. She might meet Raul’s fate, or even William’s, in the next heartbeat, but she might also succeed.
The decision was Seesaw’s.
Melina gripped the halter rope, her eyes big.
Seesaw made a whinnying sound, curling his lips back.
Lorelei gripped his coarse mane in both hands and waited.
Melina tugged at the rope and made a soft clicking sound with her tongue.
Seesaw took a tentative step, then another. He paused, quivering again, perhaps